Venugopal good doc but worst manager, says Ramadoss

New Delhi -- In a scornful attack on P. Venugopal, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss says the 66-year-old surgeon makes a good doctor but the "worst" manager.

Fuelling further fire to his pronounced dislike for one of India's top surgeons and professors - whom he tried to oust but was prevented the Delhi High Court - Ramadoss also said not all doctors could make good administrators.

"Venugopal is one of the best doctors in this country. We respect him. But he's also one of the worst administrators," the health minister, who is a physician himself, told Karan Thapar's Devil's Advocate programme for CNN-IBN channel.

"These guys should do what they know best - treat patients - and not go into flash strikes and politics. Today, unfortunately, politics has been creeping into AIIMS," the health minister observed.

"The All India Institute of Medical Sciences is slowly becoming the 'All India Institute of Political Sciences'," the minister said, adding he wanted a better show from an institute on which the state spends Rs. 5 billion annually.

Ramadoss also claimed that that not everybody at AIIMS was with Venugopal in the ongoing move to replace him. "I'll tell you one thing: just four months ago - before the strike - 99 percent of AIIMS was against Venugopal," he claimed.

"I have got bunches of letters written by the same faculty association, resident doctors, employees, students that he is inaccessible, incoherent. Nobody could access him. They wanted me to remove him," he added.

Ramadoss, who claimed he had no ego problems with Venugopal, also blamed the media for not having projected the facts properly. "The media is not reporting it," he said.

"I am a professional, I am a doctor, what ego should I have with Venugopal?" Ramadoss queried, and added: "I have more important things than to take on Venugopal ... I have much more (important) things to do."